Navistar unveiled its new International LT series in Las Vegas on Sept. 30 with speeches, videos, hard rock music, and fire-and-smoke effects – a launch befitting a "Vegas" production and a vehicle range that will become the company’s flagship model and, executives hope, the most popular highway tractor on the market.

A little while back, Equipment Editor Jim Park tested out Cummins' latest diesel engine, the X12. Are smaller displacements the engine trend of the future? Cummins seems to think so and is hedging its bets on the question.

The 2017 X15 Efficiency series engine delivers better fuel economy than previous versions thanks to reduced friction between parts and systems but it also includes innovations to throttle response and engine braking.

Published reports indicate that Volkswagen's commercial trucks arm will soon announce it's buying nearly 20% of Navistar's shares and in return will sell diesels to the American truck builder and get two seats on the board.

Cummins' new lightweight X12 is an all-new 12L diesel engine designed for vocational and regional haul markets. Equipment Editor Jim Park gets up close with the X12 to see how the new engine performs on the road.

When Cummins entered its #28 Special race car in the 1952 Indianapolis 500, it wasn't looking to get into the racing business. It was trying to prove a point about diesel engines, and boy, did they succeed. Equipment Editor Jim Park met got a close look at the car at the launch event of Cummins 2017 engine lineup in July.

Cummins officials say their next-generation X15 heavy-duty diesel series will offer new value through economy, performance, reliability and support when it replaces existing ISX15 models in January 2017. A year later, a new X12 will supersede the current ISX12.

As engine platforms go, Cummins' ISX has to be considered slightly remarkable. It survived the transition to EGR and then to SCR aftertreatment -- while several other engines did not -- and it's still very much alive and kicking today.

In Part 1 of this Focus On... video series, equipment editor Jim Park test-drives a 2016 ISX15 engine examining some of its current features, including the ADEPT Technology Suite. In Part 2, we will examine the engine's 2017 replacement, the X15, which will build on these features and others.